Can ASEAN help regulate Southeast Asia’s land grab problem?

By Thin Win Lei
BANGKOK (TrustLaw) – In 2009, the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations became the first regional bloc in the world with a legally
binding pact to deal with disasters because the region is so vulnerable to the forces of nature.

A year earlier, the 10 countries that make up ASEAN agreed to set up
a regional structure on food security in response to soaring food
prices in 2007-08.

Now land rights advocates are hoping ASEAN will come up with a
regulatory framework to check private sector investment in land,
particularly for agriculture, as land grabs and land-related conflicts
soar in the region.

The two-day Asia Land Forum in
Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh ended on Wednesday with a plan to lobby
for an ASEAN investment policy that takes into account international guidelines and
safeguards on investments in land. They want the policy to cover such
issues as land tenancy, informed consent before land is sold and
environmental impact statement for large-scale land acquisition for
agricultural, mining or forestry purposes.

It won’t be easy, however.
The issue of land is extremely sensitive in the region, yet it isn’t
high on ASEAN’s agenda. But investment is, as the group aims for regional economic integration by 2015.

“Unless there are rules and policies and a regulatory framework at a
regional level, perhaps some of the bad impacts of the investments and
large land acquisitions can escalate,” Cherian Matthews, deputy
regional director of Oxfam Great Britain in Asia, said in a telephone
interview from Phnom Penh.

“So this is the right moment for us to advocate for such a policy framework,” he said.
Civil society organisations hope that pushing for an investment
policy that includes land rights will prove more successful than
tackling land governance.

“The first thing is really to sensitise the governments in terms of
land issues and that's why for the last two years at the Asia Land
Forum, we invited some government officials to participate,” said
Nathaniel Don Marquez, executive director of ANGOC, which organised the
forum together with International Land Coalition Asia and STAR
Kampuchea.

PEOPLE VERSUS POWER
Despite the region’s impressive economic growth, many ASEAN countries are still rural economies.
As governments and companies move to exploit natural resources,
large-scale land acquisitions are pitting communities and activists
against powerful interests who have acquired land for a range of
purposes from speculation, biofuel and food production to
infrastructure projects.

On Oct 4, Voice of America reported that a provincial court threw out the murder case of prominent Cambodian activist Chut Wutty, who was killed in April after years of fighting illegal logging and corruption by government and big business.

An area estimated to be between 56 and 63 percent of all arable land
in Cambodia has been handed out to private companies, Oxfam said in a report
released Thursday. In poor countries foreign investors bought up land
area the size of London every six days between 2000 and 2010, it added.

Oxfam is calling for a temporary freeze by the World Bank on all
agricultural investments while it reviews ways to stop land grabs.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
“In ASEAN, Myanmar is also opening up. So a huge investment and rush
for land is also taking place in Myanmar,” said Oxfam’s Matthews.

“One of the reasons why we're going the regional way is also because
some of the civil society organisations and communities are not able to
exert their pressure at a national level because they have been
threatened and so on,” he added.

Land rights groups and farmers also need to improve their ability to
engage governments and international organisations in dialogue, said
ANGOC’s Marquez.

“That means being equipped with more evidence-based research, being
able to back up our claims, and having solid studies, so when we talk
with decision-makers we can really say our claims are supported by
facts,” he said.

While Cambodian government’s behaviour towards land rights activists
has triggered criticism at home and abroad, Marquez is optimistic.

For him, the attendance of government officials, like Cambodia’s
Secretary of State for the Ministry of Land Management Chhan Saphan who
gave opening remarks at the forum, is a positive step. A meeting here
in March on land issues had to find a new location at the eleventh hour
because the original hotel did not want to lose their license for
allowing the event, he said.

“That’s how sensitive the land issue in this country is,” he told TrustLaw.
“The fact that (government officials) participated and stayed for
two days is a big step. It should be seen as an opportunity and an
entry point to further engage them,” Marquez added. “I don't see any
point of not engaging them.”